Copy of `A Social Psychology Glossary`

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A Social Psychology Glossary Category: Sciences > Psychology Date & country: 14/01/2009, USA Words: 240

Social anxiety
The unpleasant emotion people experience due to their concern with interpersonal evaluation.

Social categorization
The classification of people into groups based on their common attributes.

Social comparison theory
The theory that proposes that we evaluate our thoughts and actions by comparing them to those of others.

Social constructionism
A perspective in the social sciences that states that individuals creatively shape reality through social interaction.

Social exchange theory
The theory that proposes that we seek out and maintain those relationships in which the rewards exceed the costs.

Social facilitation
The enhancement of dominant responses due to the presence of others.

Social identities
Aspects of a person's self-concept based upon his or her group memberships.

Social impact theory
The theory that the amount of social influence others have depends on their number, strength, and immediacy to those they are trying to influence.

Social influence
The exercise of social power by a person or group to change the attitudes or behavior of others in a particular direction.

Social learning theory
A theory that proposes that social behavior is primarily learned by observing and imitating the actions of others, and secondarily by being directly rewarded and punished for our own actions.

Social loafing
Group-induced reduction in individual output when performer's efforts are pooled, and thus, cannot be individually judged.

Social penetration theory
A theory that describes the development of close relationships in terms of increasing self-disclosure.

Social perception
The way we seek to know and understand other persons and events.

Social physique anxiety
Anxiety about others observing and evaluating one's physique.

Social power
The force available to the influencer to motivate attitude or behavior change.

Social psychology
The scientific discipline that attempts to understand and explain how the thought, feeling, and behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others.

Social role theory
The theory that virtually all of the documented behavioral differences between males and females can be accounted for in terms of cultural stereotypes about gender and the resulting social roles that are taught to the young.

Social roles
A cluster of socially defined expectations that individuals in a give situation are expected to fulfill.

Social skills training
A behavioral training program designed to improve interpersonal skills through observation, modeling, role-playing, and behavioral rehearsal.

Sociobiology
A scientific discipline concerned with identifying biological and genetic bases for social behavior in humans and other animals.

Stereotype
A fixed way of thinking about people that puts them into categories and doesn't allow for individual variation.

Stereotype vulnerability
A disturbing awareness among members of a negatively stereotyped group that anything one does, or anything about oneself that fits the stereotype, may confirm it as a self-characterization.

Stigma
An attribute that serves to discredit a person in the eyes of others.

Strategic self-presentation
Conscious and deliberate efforts to shape other people's impressions in order to gain power, influence, sympathy or approval.

Subculture
A social group exhibiting a lifestyle sufficiently different to distinguish itself from others within the larger culture.

Subliminal perception
The processing of information which is below one's threshold of conscious awareness.

Superordinate goal
A mutually shared goal that can be achieved only through intergroup cooperation.

Supplication
Advertising one's weaknesses or one's dependence upon others in order to solicit help or sympathy.

Symbolic interaction theory
A contemporary sociological theory, inspired by Mead's insights and based on the premise that the self and social reality emerge due to the meaningful communication among people.

Symbols
Arbitrary signs of objects that stand in the place of those objects.

That's-not-all strategy
A two-step compliance technique in which the influencer makes a large request, then immediately offers a discount or bonus before the initial request is refused.

Theory
An organized system of ideas that seeks to explain why two or more events are related.

Theory of planned behavior
The theory that people's conscious decisions to engage in specific actions are determined by their attitudes toward the behavior in question, the relevant subjective norms, and their perceived behavioral control.

Theory of psychological reactance
The theory that people believe they possess specific behavioral freedoms, and that they will react against and resent attempts to limit this sense of freedom.

Threat-to-self-esteem model
A theory stating that if receiving help contains negative self-messages, recipients are likely to feel threatened and respond negatively.

Trait
A relatively stable way in which individuals differ from one another.

Transactive memory
A collectively shared memory system for encoding, storing, and retrieving information that is greater than any individual memories.

Transformational leader
A leader who changes (transforms) the outlook and behavior of followers (also referred to as a charismatic leader).

Treatment group
Experimental participants who are exposed to nonzero levels of the independent variable.

Two-factor theory of emotions
A theory that emotional experience is based on two factors: physiological arousal and cognitive labeling of the cause of that arousal.